


In from the cold

by cactusonastair



Category: White Collar
Genre: Cutting, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Missing Scene, guilty!Peter, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 17:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10667067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cactusonastair/pseuds/cactusonastair
Summary: Peter and El take a peek at the folder Rebecca prepared on Neal's childhood and discover clues to a past they never expected. Meanwhile, Neal is cracking under the weight of Hagen's manipulations, Rebecca's betrayal, and Peter's disappointment.Missing scene from Season 5.





	In from the cold

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings: references to the sexual abuse of a child, child neglect, and cutting.

"You coming to bed, hon?"

Peter looked up from the dregs of his celebratory glass of wine at his beautiful wife. God, he'd missed her over the past few days. Though he'd been equal parts relieved that she was far away from the woman who'd murdered David Siegel. A big part of him wanted to fall into bed with her and give her the welcome home she deserved. Another part of him was thinking only of the file burning a hole in his briefcase.

"Just a few minutes, El. I've got a file I want to go through. It won't take long."

Elizabeth's expression turned reproving. "Really, Peter? Haven't you done enough for one day? You put a murderer behind bars. You accepted a promotion to DC. Have you managed to become even more of a workaholic in my absence?"

"Actually...maybe you'll want to see it too." He extracted a photograph from the folder, of a toddler grinning unabashedly at the camera. "Guess who."

Elizabeth gasped. "Is that little Neal?" She pressed up against him on the couch. "Awww, what a cutie! Peter, how did you get your hands on this?"

"Rachel Turner. AKA Rebecca Lowe."

"Neal's girlfriend?"

"She dug it up. This is stuff I've never had access to, El. The Marshals are supposed to have total lockdown on WitSec data, but she still managed to get her hands on it." Peter couldn't help the admiring tone that entered his voice. "She's good."

"She _was_ good," El corrected him. "She's behind bars now, remember?"

"Right. So. Ready to learn more about Neal's childhood?" Peter grinned at her.

She grinned back. "Hit me."

They looked at the photographs first: Neal showing his early love of headgear; Neal as an elementary school kid, gap in his teeth, the only time in his life that a girl had ever turned him down; Neal in middle school, participating in a math competition. Oh, this was superb cannon-fodder to tease Neal with. Next time Neal tried to needle him about his accounting degree, he knew just how to retaliate.

If there were any photos of Neal in the awkward phase of adolescence, they'd been excised from the file. The next photo leapt forward several years to show Neal as he must have been in high school, his lithe body arched over a pole vault bar. _That_ gave Peter one or two ideas of how Caffrey had carried out a couple of his more "impossible" feats during his crime spree.

The next one showed Neal at prom, his youthful face open and grinning directly at the camera, a gorgeous girl pinned to his side, dark-haired and blue-eyed, friends clustered around making faces. He looked every inch the quintessential clean-cut, all-American boy.

"I bet you he was prom king," Elizabeth said.

"I bet you're right." It had also probably been the last act of his high school career. Then had come his eighteenth birthday and he'd disappeared from these people's lives forever. He wondered what the Marshals had told his friends. That Danny was dead? He'd probably broken a lot of hearts with his disappearance. Peter had personal experience of the feeling.

"Next up. School reports." Elizabeth picked up the next sheaf of papers. "Huh. Didn't you say his name in WitSec was Danny Brooks?"

"Yeah." Peter frowned at the card on the top. "These are for an Adam Phillips. And from Riverton Elementary School in Riverton, Massachusetts. But Neal said the Marshals took him to St. Louis."

Elizabeth riffled through the stack. "The later reports are from St. Louis." She raised her eyebrows. "Looks like he repeated sixth grade."

"Not a straight-A student then?" Peter said, with some surprise.

Together, they traced the trajectory of Neal's school career: mixed reviews from his early teachers, who adored Adam's intelligence and love of learning but lamented his hyperactivity and penchant for pranks. Only his art and phys ed instructors had been gushing in their praise. And then, in sixth grade, things had taken a dramatic dive, with his final report from Riverton showing a mixed bag of grades, most of which were C's and D's. The teachers had been sympathetic, some comments alluding to a long absence from school that might explain his poor performance.

Neal, as Danny, had shown up in sixth grade the next year in St. Louis and started acing every one of his subjects, although the praise from his later art teachers had tapered off to merely saying that he was somewhat talented. He would have been valedictorian, for sure.

"Do you think he was ill in sixth grade?" Elizabeth asked.

"He's never mentioned it." Neal had always seemed disgustingly healthy. Peter looked between the two stacks of report cards: Neal as Adam Phillips and Neal as Danny Brooks. They may as well have been for two entirely different children.

"If I showed you each of these and asked you which ones belonged to Neal, what would you say?"

Elizabeth took only a moment to consider. "Adam Phillips, definitely."

"Something changed him. From proto-Neal Caffrey to..."

"High school jock. And then something changed him back."

Not much of a mystery there: Peter knew about the shock to the system finding out his father hadn't been the heroic police officer Neal had grown up believing him to be. The question was, had the first shock been equally traumatic?

"Maybe this guy knows." Peter fingered a handwritten notation in red at the bottom of Adam's final, disastrous report. The handwriting was Rachel's. "Derek Owen."

"Do you think he might have been Neal's doctor?"

Peter couldn't really think why a doctor would warrant a note from Rachel. "I don't know. There's probably another file on him among Rachel's research, but it'll be back at the Bureau."

They stared at the file for a moment, then at each other.

"Okay, I'll look him up." Peter grabbed his laptop and settled back next to El, propping his legs on the coffee table and the laptop on his legs, and fired up the database. "Derek Owen."

"There's a lot more Derek Owens in the United States than I would have guessed."

"We can narrow it down. Location, Riverton, Massachusetts, late 80s to early 90s. Too narrow. Let's widen it to Massachusetts."

"There." Elizabeth pointed to the middle of three names. "This one's a federal marshal."

"Huh." That changed the complexion of things. Had Neal gotten into some kind of trouble that necessitated the intervention of the marshals? Maybe he'd even run away. That would explain an absence from school. Peter clicked into the man's service record.

"Okay, so he was in charge of WitSec family liaison in northern Massachusetts. Hon, this has got to be him."

"Right. Let's look at what he was doing in the year 1990." Peter scrolled down. His hand froze.

They stared at the screen. There had been a trial. The State vs. Derek Owen. Peter's gut lurched. He clicked on the file. It was blank.

"What does that mean?"

Peter's mouth was dry. "The records are sealed. Could be that there's a current injunction against anyone accessing the records. Or..."

"Or?"

"It could involve a crime against a minor."

Elizabeth's hand flew to her mouth. "Oh my god. Neal."

"Yeah," Peter said heavily. He clicked out of the trial file and scrolled down. "Whatever happened, the charges didn't stick. He was transferred out of Massachusetts, eventually given an administrative discharge. Huh."

"What is it, hon?"

"The man's dead. He was killed a month ago." He pulled up the police report.

"Shot through the heart from a distance," Elizabeth murmured.

"That's Rachel Turner's MO. Guess I have something else to add to her rap sheet."

"But if she killed him, that means she thought that Derek Owen really did something terrible to Neal."

The possibilities ran through Peter's mind, each one more horrible than the last. He knew Elizabeth was thinking the same thing. He also knew he'd never be able to sleep with the uncertainty on his mind. "I'm sorry I showed you this, hon. I thought it would be..." _Fun. Good ammo for our next sniping match._ "...I just wanted to know more about Neal." _Not invade his privacy and dig up his worst secrets._ But now that he knew, he had to find out everything.

Elizabeth patted his hand sadly. "Still chasing him after all these years."

And in just two weeks that wouldn't be his job anymore. The thought struck Peter with a pang. He'd told Neal that he'd leave him in Jones' care. But that wasn't what Peter really wanted. Neal was _his_.

"I'm going to go to the Bureau, look up Rachel's file on Owen. If she could get all this, she definitely managed to retrieve the record of the hearing."

"Go on, hon. I'll try to get some sleep."

Right, El must be exhausted by the trip back from DC. "This wasn't how I thought your first night back would be," Peter said ruefully.

"It wasn't how we ever pictured Neal's childhood being either," she reminded him. "Good night, hon. Take care of our boy, all right?"

"I will," Peter promised. They shared a kiss. He watched her head upstairs, gusted a sigh, and packed up to head back to the office.

* * *

All the evidence from the Rachel Turner case was strewn over the conference room. Luckily her filing system had been organized, if idiosyncratic, and it didn't take long to find the file marked "Derek Owen".

Sure enough, she had the trial records, even the original police file. The case had started with a report made by a Ruth Dowling, who was pretty clearly the woman Peter knew as Ellen Parker. She'd apparently been out of town, and "Adam"'s mom had found it hard to cope with her son alone. She'd appealed to Owen for help and he'd offered to take Adam in for a week. Ellen had returned two weeks later, only to discover a sullen, brooding boy in place of the bright, helpful kid she knew. When she discovered the cuts on his arms, she knew that something awful had happened. She hadn't been able to extract anything from Adam, but she had enough to file a report.

The investigation progressed. Too much time had elapsed for there to be physical evidence, apart from the one photograph of Adam's cuts, a series of neat scars progressing up his arm from his wrist that sent a chill down Peter's spine. They'd sent Adam to a child psychologist, and with help from his art teacher she'd been able to break down the barriers. He'd drawn what Owen had done to him. What Owen had forced Adam to do to him.

The sketches were well-executed, detailed, and after looking through a few Peter lunged for the trash can. After a few heaves he sat back and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. How could anyone do that to any kid? How could anyone do that to _Neal_? The kid beloved by his schoolteachers, with the megawatt smile? How could a man the government had entrusted with Neal's safety betray his family's trust in such a way?

And why hadn't he been found guilty? Neal's hand-drawn evidence should have been enough to put the man away. A prosecutor had cared enough to put together a case for indictment. He found the answer in the file: the prosecutor had been recused, abruptly, just before trial. Her replacement had botched the trial, allowing the defense's case, that this came down to the word of a eleven-year-old boy against a respected federal marshal, that the drawings were the work of an overactive imagination, to win over the jury.

The new prosecutor's name had been Paul Vokes. He, too, was in Rachel's files. He'd later been convicted of accepting bribes to throw cases and disbarred in disgrace. Some of his original cases had been reviewed, but since no one had ever been able to locate Adam Phillips, no action had been taken to re-open his case. But Rachel had surveillance on him. If they'd not arrested her, Vokes may also have found a bullet through his heart one day. Peter wasn't so sure that he didn't deserve it.

Peter shut the file and exhaled. What now? He could head home, tell his wife about the travesty of justice that had occurred. But he wanted to see Neal, reassure himself that he was all right. It had been a stressful few months. At least Neal hadn't started cutting again. Had he?

Peter tried to visualize Neal in short sleeves. He hadn't had much opportunity to see Neal in casual clothes recently. He hadn't visited Neal in his apartment, and Neal hadn't come to visit them. He'd kept Neal at arm's length after he'd been released from prison.

Wait, there had been the confrontation with Neal in his apartment, over the theft of the gold coins. Neal had been wearing a short-sleeved shirt then. He'd ordered Neal to hold out his hands for the cuffs. But he couldn't recall what his arms had looked like. He'd been too angry to notice anything.

He could ask Neal tomorrow. It was two in the morning, the kid needed his beauty sleep.

Out of reflex, Peter brought up Neal's tracking data anyway. The dot appeared on the screen, but it was meaningless without the base map. Loading. Loading. You'd think with the amount of money Justice paid for the tracking app, it wouldn't take more than ten seconds to load a goddamn map.

The streets of Manhattan appeared, arranging themselves under the green dot that represented Neal Caffrey. Peter lurched to his feet.

Neal wasn't at home.

He was on the very edge of his radius.

* * *

The dot stayed stationary throughout Peter's drive, which was both a relief and a worry. It grew more of a worry when Peter found out that his location was inside a construction site for a brand new skyscraper.

Security was non-existent, mostly consisting of a chain around the gate and a snoring security guard. The lock had been picked. Peter pried the gate open and slipped in under the chain. Behind the hoardings was a massive crater. Construction hadn't gotten past the foundations, driving a forest of piles into the earth. Peter's heart pounded as he searched for a tiny green light at the bottom of the pit. Then he caught sight of it out of the corner of his eye.

Neal was sitting at the edge of the crater, staring into its depths. He looked up when Peter approached, his face distorted by the tearless grief Peter was all too accustomed to seeing on his face these days.

"Decided to indulge in a little late night trespassing?" Peter tried to keep his tone light-hearted as he came to stand by Neal.

Neal matched it. "Couldn't pass up a great metaphor," he said, sweeping a hand over the crater.

A black hole with stakes driven through it. Peter could easily guess what it was supposed to be a metaphor for. The kid had had his heart broken way too many times in his life.

He put a hand on Neal's bony shoulder, felt the chill in the skin beneath the thin T-shirt. "It's too cold to be sitting around in these clothes," he chided, though he was glad for the evidence that Neal's arms were free from scars. "C'mon, let's get you home."

"What, you aren't gonna arrest me for trespassing?" Neal said casually, as he got to his feet and dusted himself off.

Peter stared. "You want me to?"

Neal shrugged. "We caught Siegel's killer. You're headed to DC. Seems like a natural break."

Peter's heart ached a little. Neal must be feeling like an unwanted kid, and Peter now knew what had happened when he'd been shunted from caretaker to caretaker as a kid. But at least this time he'd have someone he could trust.

"No, I told you, Jones will take care of you."

Neal shook his head. "I don't want Jones to be my handler."

Peter took a deep breath. He should have known Neal would be difficult about this. "Who, then?"

"No one. You can put me back in prison, I'll serve out my remaining sentence."

Peter's jaw dropped. He knew how much Neal valued his freedom, how much even the two-mile radius chafed. There was no way he was volunteering to go back to prison. "Are you drunk?" Peter asked cautiously.

Neal spread his hands, smiling his conman's smile. "Distressingly sober."

"I'm not sending you back to prison, Neal." The thought of Neal trapped between gray walls was anathema to Peter now. It wasn't how a handler should feel, but it was inescapable.

Neal's smile dropped like an anchor. "Peter, I can't do this anymore," he said. He sounded exhausted. "I _know_ you don't want me around anymore."

Dread curled in Peter's stomach. "You're wrong. Look, is this because of what I said to Rebecca? That I don't trust you? Because that was just an act."

Neal looked him in the eye. "But telling Jones you regret taking me on, wasn't."

Peter reeled. How could Neal possibly have...he hadn't even been in the office that day. He'd been with Curtis Hagen. Could he have bugged the Bureau? But it got swept for surveillance devices every night.

"You can't deny it," Neal said quietly.

"That day...look, I was frustrated. We were stymied in our search for Siegel's killer, you were obviously hiding something big from me, you'd stolen two million dollars from right under my nose...but all that's changed now."

"You found out my girlfriend was a killer, so now you feel sorry for me," Neal said, a wry smile twisting his mouth. "Pity isn't a good foundation for a relationship, Peter."

"No, but understanding is." Peter took a deep breath. "I know about Adam Phillips, Neal. I know what happened to him."

A flurry of emotions crossed Neal's face before the mask clamped down once more. But Peter was familiar enough with Neal's moods by now that he could read them as they flashed past: shock, distress, confusion, realization, annoyance. "Nothing happened to Adam Phillips, Peter. A jury said so."

"The jury was wrong."

Neal shook his head. "I'm guessing this was all in Rebecca's files. That stuff's supposed to be sealed."

"Yeah, well, you've seen how secure the Marshals' building is," Peter said awkwardly.

"And of course, you had to read it." Neal fixed Peter with a hard stare.

Peter nodded guiltily.

"Trying to trace back where the life of lies started, Peter? I guess you found your answer."

"Neal, you didn't lie. You were a good kid. You had no reason to bring false accusations against a federal marshal. And regardless of how good a kid you were...that should never have happened to you, Neal. I'm so sorry that it did."

Neal turned away in silence. Peter stepped up to him and put a hand on his back, felt the tension in the corded muscles as he tried not to sob.

"Hey, let's talk in the car, okay? It's starting to get cold even for me."

He expected a protest, but Neal simply nodded and followed him past the still-oblivious security guard, sliding into the seat next to Peter. Peter turned up the heat and drove.

Two miles wasn't a huge distance, so they were at June's before the silence had time to get awkward. Peter pulled up on the side street.

Neal made no move to exit the car, just leaned his head against the window and stared out the window. His passivity scared Peter. He'd never seen Neal so pliant. If Peter said go back to prison, he'd just hold out his hands for the cuffs. No trying to talk his way out of it, this time.

"Neal."

"I asked for it, you know." There was a hard edge to Neal's voice.

"What? Neal, no. No one asks for that to happen to them."

"I did. I was the one who asked to stay with Derek. I thought it was a great idea. Better that I go away than Mom."

Peter frowned. "Why would your mom go away?"

"Sometimes I got too much for her, I guess. Especially on weekends, when there wasn't school to keep me occupied. I'd come home, she'd be gone. No note, nothing. Sometimes it'd be a few hours, sometimes days."

"Jesus, Neal." Peter thought of his own home, how he'd get off the school bus and run into the house to be greeted by the smell of baking cookies and a big hug. "Where was Ellen in all of this?"

"She was seeing someone at the time. I think his name was Bob. They'd go away on weekends, sometimes, vacations. She didn't know about my mom."

"You never told her."

"I could look after myself." Neal flashed a smile, but it rapidly faltered. "At least I thought I could. First few times I stayed with Derek, things were great. We'd toss a baseball around, he'd take me fishing and I'd draw...it was nice, you know? To feel like I had a dad, even for a little while."

"And when he gained your trust, he betrayed you. You didn't ask for that, Neal. All you wanted was to give your mom some space."

"When Ellen found out, she was so mad. She was the one who insisted on pressing charges. She was crushed when the jury returned the not guilty verdict. She told me not every cop was like Derek Owen, that justice would prevail eventually. My mom started telling me stories about my dad, the heroic policeman who died in a blaze of glory."

"That was when you started wanting to be a cop."

"I had all these naïve dreams of upholding justice." Neal smiled a self-deprecating smile.

"You started working harder at school, at sports."

"Yeah, I'd looked up the entrance requirements to the police academy. That's when I got really good at guns." A skill that had saved Peter's life. "I don't think Ellen approved, but she didn't contradict Mom either. Not till...later."

And then the rug had been pulled out from under the kid's feet for the third time in his life. Peter felt a sudden rush of admiration for Neal. Not the begrudging admiration he'd felt for Rachel, for her resourcefulness, her coolness under pressure, her intelligence — although Neal had all those things — but a heartfelt admiration, for what Neal _hadn't_ done with his gifts.

He could have been the male Rachel Turner, cold-blooded and calculating, never forming attachments. The world had gotten off easy when Neal Caffrey decided that his criminal career would center around thrill-seeking rather than seeking revenge on a world that had beaten him down. All the psychological wounds that had been inflicted on Neal in his young life — neglect, abuse — these were the kinds of things criminals trotted out at their sentencing hearings, but Neal had never once used any of it as an excuse. He hadn't needed to. He'd been resolutely non-violent.

Every time Neal could have chosen hate, he'd chosen love instead, even when it had turned out to be his greatest weakness. He'd never turned his back on a friend, even when they'd turned their backs on him. He'd bounced back from every psychological blow.

Except Peter had never heard Neal's voice so flat, so emotionless. Not even after Kate had died.

Neal was staring sightlessly off at the tree-lined street, forehead pressed against the window. "Y'know, when we were moved to St. Louis, Ellen was given a choice. She could stay with Bob or come with us."

"She chose you. She wanted to protect you."

"And look where that got her," Neal said quietly.

"That wasn't your fault either, Neal."

"No? What about Kate getting blown up? Mozzie getting shot? El getting kidnapped? You going to prison? Siegel getting killed? I'm not going to add Jones to that list, Peter."

 _Jesus, kid, is this the kind of guilt you carry around on a daily basis?_ Peter stared at Neal's face, scrunched up in pain. He made an executive decision. Okay, so it was really Elizabeth who'd made it, when she made him promise. He started the car.

"Peter, what — June's house is right there!"

"I'm taking you back to my place."

Neal sat up, protesting, the first signs of animation he'd shown since Peter had found him in that construction site. "Peter, have you heard _nothing_ I've said? I'm — _cursed_ , Peter, people _die_ because they get close to me."

"I heard what you said, Neal. This is what I heard: you care about the people around you. You're trying to protect us."

"You're not exactly letting me, Peter."

"How do you do it, Neal?" Peter asked, genuinely curious. "How did you go to prison for four years and come out so...so generous in spirit?"

Neal stared at him, his mouth hanging open.

"I was in there six weeks and...it hardened me. When I came out, all I wanted to do was to draw a line between me and the criminals I was housed with. I wound up putting up a wall between me and my best friend."

Neal blinked. "We're friends?" he whispered hoarsely, and Peter was deeply sorry he'd ever given Neal cause to think otherwise.

"Yeah, Neal. You were willing to do anything to save me from prison. I...still can't condone the method you used to get me out. But I think I can understand it now." Peter gripped the steering wheel harder. "You had experience with a crooked prosecutor in the past. You knew that if one was willing to take a bribe to set a guilty man free, they might be willing to take a bribe to put an innocent man in jail."

"Hagen. Wanted revenge." The words slipped out, small in the space of the car.

Peter closed his eyes for a moment, letting out a breath. Confirmation of what he'd half-suspected since Hagen had ordered Neal to beg for his freedom. "He was blackmailing you from the start. And you had to deal with it all on your own." Because he'd known Peter wouldn't forgive him for twisting the system to his own purposes.

"Wasn't alone," Neal murmured. "Mozzie helped."

Of course, Mozzie. A more dependable friend than Peter ever was. "Yeah, but I wasn't there for you. I'm sorry, Neal."

Peter felt Neal's gaze on him again, shocked and bewildered by the apology. "It's okay, Peter," he said finally.

Neal always forgave way too easily.

"No, Neal, it's not okay. I should have let you explain instead of cutting you out. But I was so convinced that the system worked." He'd once criticized Neal for mooning after Kate. Turned out he'd been the hopeless romantic about the justice system, and Neal the hard-eyed realist. "I built my life on a lie, Neal. I thought the system didn't victimize innocent people. But it did that to you, and it did that to me. You're the one who saved me from that, and I should've been grateful instead of threatening to throw you back in prison. I should've been a better friend so you'd have known from the beginning you could come to me, instead of carrying the burden alone."

For the first time that evening, a tiny but rueful smile appeared on Neal's face. "No, I wouldn't have. Peter, back when we lost the trial, you were the kind of law enforcement officer Ellen told me about, that she was trying to convince me actually existed when I thought every cop and marshal and lawyer was a crook. You improve the system just by being a part of it. I knew I was tainting you by submitting false evidence, and I knew how you'd feel about it. I hated betraying your trust in the system. But I needed you to stay in the system and continue working to make things right, more."

Peter reached a hand over to grip Neal's. "I'll do my best to live up to your expectations."

The tiny grin grew wider. Neal's smile was like armor, and he looked naked and vulnerable without it. It was good to see it back.

"So, no more of this talk of sending yourself back to prison?"

Neal exhaled. "No, Peter. I'm...thanks, for forgiving me."

"It's what friends do," Peter said simply, and let a comfortable silence reign for the rest of the journey to Brooklyn.

* * *

Neal hesitated for a moment before walking through the door behind Peter. The townhouse, which had once felt like a home away from home, felt alien with all the cardboard boxes, reminding him so eloquently of what he was about to lose.

He'd convinced himself he didn't care that Peter and Elizabeth were going away. If Peter didn't like or trust him, why should he? The prospect of an end to the awkward silences and even worse arguments in the office had felt welcome.

But tonight's resetting of their friendship had changed all that. It was kind of ironic that he owed it to Rebecca's — no, Rachel's — obsessively invasive investigation into his life. It had solved one problem, but created another.

He didn't want them to go. He was going to be stuck in his radius for another year and a half, they would be two hundred and twenty miles away, and he was actually going to miss the man who held his leash.

Satchmo bounded up to him, wagging his tail eagerly. "Hey, boy. Long time no see." Neal knelt, scritching the Lab's ears in the way he knew Satchmo liked best.

"Hi, Neal."

Neal looked up and saw the lady of the house standing atop the stairs. "Oh, hey, Elizabeth. Sorry, did we wake you up?"

She was wearing a terry-cloth robe and her hair rumpled with sleep, so they definitely had, but Elizabeth was never one to complain. She descended regally, and gave him one of her patented feel-good hugs. "It's good to see you, Neal. I've missed you."

The hug felt even warmer than usual, and Neal knew that she knew. Maybe not everything, because Peter wouldn't just tell without asking his permission first. Somehow, it didn't matter as much as he thought it would. He hugged her back. "Missed you more."

She was gorgeous when she smiled. "I thought Peter might bring you back here, so I made up the bed in the spare bedroom. I put out a pair of Peter's pajamas, and a towel if you feel like a shower."

"You're a mind-reader, El. Thank you." Peter kissed her.

Neal swallowed. "I guess I'll head up then. Thanks, Elizabeth. Peter."

"Good night, Neal. Sweet dreams."

Neal hauled himself upstairs and closed the door behind him, looking at the skeleton of the room. All the little ornamental touches Elizabeth had added were packed away, but still there was a homeliness to it that he'd rarely felt anywhere else. He pulled off his trousers and sat on the bed, running his fingers over the series of ridged scars on his thigh.

His fingers itched for the Swiss army knife he always carried on his person, for that release of pain that told him he was still alive, for the intoxicating feeling of control over his own fate, even if he could only exert it in a tiny, tiny way.

He'd definitely lost control today. He couldn't believe he'd actually asked Peter to send him back to prison. But the prospect of eighteen more months with an uncaring handler had been too daunting to contemplate.

Maybe he could live with putting Jones in danger. Or maybe there was another way.

There was always another way.

Neal slipped on Peter's pajama pants and swapped his T-shirt for the pajama top.

From across the landing, he could hear Peter and Elizabeth softly talking, getting ready for bed.

Tomorrow, he would ask Moz to get to work on locating the diamond. And he would ask Peter to have another stab at getting his sentence commuted. If their record had been impressive enough to promote Peter twice over in just a few months, it should be impressive enough to earn his release.

Neal snuggled down into the sheets. For the first time in a long time, he didn't dream of Peter's angry, disappointed face. He didn't dream of Rebecca. He didn't even dream of Derek Owen. He dreamed of fortune and friendship and freedom, which finally, _finally_ , felt within reach.

**Author's Note:**

> I recently got into White Collar and wrote this for catharsis from my annoyance at Peter's treatment of Neal in Season 5. I probably swung too far in the other direction with his guilt, but it helped, personally. 
> 
> I also wanted to reconcile two plot points that I feel remain unexplained in canon: the Riverton, Massachusetts school report seen in Rebecca's filing cabinet in Season 5 Episode 11 (Shot through the heart) and how Peter and Neal get back into each other's good graces so quickly. A couple of minor distortions to the canon timeline are necessary to fit in this fic (namely, Neal's pool-sharping at age 9 in St. Louis, and telling Moz to get back on the trail of the diamond before Elizabeth returns from DC) but I hope it works otherwise.


End file.
